It Takes Balls to Make Social Media Work

Yup, I said balls. Cahonas. Plums. Call them what you will, without a pair of them, you’ll struggle to make any real impact with social media. Social media as a business and marketing tool is now at a level of adoption that the ordinary will not suffice. It is rare that a brand or business breaks ranks and steps out of the norm and into the fabulously daring, and to me, that is a worry, as mediocrity will become the accepted standard.

What’s stopping people?

From the various conversations I have with people from across the business community, I think there are two things stopping people going ‘balls out’.

Fear

Many people still see social media as a big scary beast that is going to create unrelenting negativity around their business. If you have a great product or service and take a planned and committed approach to social media use, you should have little to worry about. The basics fears around social are stopping many businesses dropping the ordinary and taking a swig of the extraordinary.

The ‘just enough’ attitude

Social media is seen as a necessary evil for many. Businesses appear to do ‘just enough’ in order to be seen to be active and tick the required boxes. Just enough never led to anything remarkable. They don’t want to blast the mould into smithereens as it would just take too much effort. I pity those fools.

Nuts. via http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaeden/ (CC)

Shake things up

You don’t need to be doing flashy campaigns in order to deliver remarkable things. How about spending more time delivering truly great customer service via social? Or maybe put some extra fire in the belly of the blog that is fuelling your social activity? When looking to grow your social following, don’t be happy with a vanity loaded number, push harder to find, communicate with and inspire people that truly match what you need to achieve. A big number of aloof people is worthless.

It takes balls to change things and really commit to quality. Never except ‘good enough’

And when the time is right

Do something that causes a stir, makes you stand out in your niche and gets tongues wagging, tweets flying, emails arriving and phones ringing. Have the nuts to make people in your business think and do social media differently. Not just social, all marketing and actually, everything your business does. Please note, this post isn’t just for men, I know (most) ladies don’t have balls, but it is really a state of mind as opposed to an actual physical requirement!